The Yves Saint Laurent / Pierre Bergé art collection

Oh, to have taste and money. Because no happier match was made this year between them at the Yves Saint Laurent et Pierre Bergé art collection sale in Paris.
Such exquisite pieces, such high end refined tastes. You can instantly imagine just one of the pieces brightening your living room and elevate it to something worth receiving guests in.
The prices paid at the auction, of course, beggar belief and I'm not sure if I had a spare 21 million euros I would have bought the Eileen Gray Dragon chair and dared sitting in it. But it's easy to understand how fast you could fall in love with that piece of furniture. Or any of the paintings or sculptures - I particularly liked the Mondrian ones, even his landscapes.

Browsing through the online whole collection made me think that it is actually an enormous shame that the collection could not stay together, because it would make such a fabulous permanent art exhibition if it were housed in its own Paris venue. Much like the fantastic Museo Thyssen Boremisza in Madrid, which was created from a family's collection and takes you through a vault of world high art history, very much like the YSL/PB collection does.

Favourite places to share

1. Paris, France
2. Madrid, Spain
3. Copenhagen, Denmark
4. Waiheke Island, New Zealand
5. Stockholm, Sweden
6. Antwerp, Belgium
7. Bruges, Belgium
8. Barcelona, Spain
9. Hong Kong, China
10. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
11. Rarotonga, Cook Islands
12. Edinburgh, UK
13. Napier, New Zealand
14. Middelburg, The Netherlands
    

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Fat fighters

From the Australian Sunday Telegraph:

* 7500 of 53,000 Australian military are obese
* More than three times more than US military
* 104 were discharged last year for obesity
* The navy has the highest number of obese personnel, followed by the army and air force

Several years ago, the Australian navy vessel HMAS Melbourne was in Auckland Harbour for a visit, and as always when foreign sailors visit these shores, we did not miss the chance to go have a look. Not, of course, at the vessel, but the sailors on board. Who cares about hardware and guns and stuff when all that seafood is running around. We are classified as a friendly port after all.
I remember that life looked pretty comfy on board, judging by the number of surf board strapped to the funnel. But what really struck me was that the average weight of the sailor was way beyond my comfort zone. The on board galley must be serving supersized proportions, or they don't get enough physical exercise, but the obesity was pretty clear even 10 years ago.
As the Australian military man said in above newspaper article:

"The way the ship operates 24/7, they are either working or sleeping, they have access to good grub on board and the opportunity to exercise is limited."

Unfortunately, the New Zealand Navy boys have grown in weight too, in my estimation, looking at them swaggering on Queen Street on a Saturday night, trying to make the ferry back to Devonport. Maybe I need to alert Navy command that their finest are letting the side down.

New Zealand internet blackout

UPDATE: I didn't turn my whole blog black because I didn't know enough about HTML programming to fiddle with such a major change. The Government has postponed the law change until a compromise can be worked out. So victory goes to the blogosphere.

Progressive Bills Project

Now here's something to get your citizen's teeth into so it makes you stop moaning about politics and how little power we have. No Right Turn has set up a NZ Progressive Bills Project where you can draft Member's Bills on whatever topic you deem relevant and is being ignored in conventional party politics.
So put your thinking cap on and start submitting.

I started off with throwing up a few ideas, reprising earlier ideas. At the ideas stage still are:
- Join the EU and euro
- Lower the drinking age to 16
- Increase the driving age to 18

But my first Bill drafted concerns the abolition of advertising restrictions on New Zealand television, bringing the regulations in line with other media, old and new.

NZ pride

The annual Big Gay Out came and went again last weekend. I didn't attend again either since it's every year very much of a muchness.
The main difference this year was the presence of the new Prime Minister, but it wasn't his first visit either. John Key, apparently, got on stage for some community singalong and dancing with a few massive drag queens. Picture here.

And doesn't Buffy (pictured left) look just like Jeremy Clarkson in drag?

A sour note was struck by the PM, not just by voting against the Civil Union Bill, but also by questioning the $47 million spending on the Governor-General's residence in Wellington, plus:

"he revealed that he has cancelled the $400,000 budgeted upgrade to the soft furnishings at his own official residence in Wellington, Premier House."

This revelation will cause apoplexy among his new friends as they take a very dim view on economising on soft furnishings, credit crunch or not.
It just shows how easily you win and lose friends, all in a gay day's PR spin.